Why was widespread use of the sun as an alternate energy source not supported by the government beginning with Reagan and continuing for the next twenty-eight years?
Because the very ubiquitousness of the sun is a detriment to its widespread use in an unregulated supply based capitalistic system: it cannot easily be concentrated in the hands of a few for large profits.
What is a capitalistic system? To me it is one where the means to produce the things that people need and want in their daily lives is in the hands of the capitalists.
Who are the capitalists? In our free enterprise system they are the people who own the means (factories and the machines in them) to produce the things that we need and want.
What is money capital? In our capitalistic system it is a claim on the goods we all need and want in our daily lives.
Is that supply of goods, the things we all need and want, infinite? NO IT IS NOT! That the pie is unlimited is the lie that the rich would have us believe; often, I think, without knowing the truth themselves. They have learned how to amass money (the claim on the things we all need and want) without realizing and, in most cases I believe, without caring that the pie is not unlimited in size.
The pictures from the moon show the finiteness, the utter aloneness of our planet. It is only our ninety-three million mile juxtaposition with the life giving sun that our little blue world supports us all. For our world to continue we must somehow win out over that most vile of human traits—greed: left unchecked, it could destroy our world as we know it.
I do not advocate a noncapitalistic system; indeed, none of the so called utopian systems could possibly work in the presents of greed. On the other hand, I disagree with the premise that regulation in a capitalistic system would kill it. On the contrary, it is only with fair regulation that it can work for a larger group of a population: witness the large prosperous middle class present from after World War II well into the decade of the 70’s.
What was in place before Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration? Unregulated, unbridled free market capitalism.
What did the country get from it? The Great Depression with its high unemployment and so much human misery.
What did F.D.R’s “New Deal” bring? It brought common sense regulation, some helpful social programs, hope, and government spending that ended The Great Depression. To those conservatives who gleefully say it was the second world war that ended the depression—was that not government spending, albeit, on tanks and guns.
What did the country get with Reagan and after with the return of the conservatives? Deregulation; and as wealth shifted to the rich, the shrinking of what was once a prosperous middle class; the abandonment of support for alternative energy systems in favor of big oil; two wars; and more deregulation in banking leading to the deepest and longest recession since The Great Depression.
But no, I do not think that a capitalistic system is unworkable; without some regulation, however, you get people in high positions amassing money capital (which is, remember, a claim on things that people need to survive) far beyond what they could need or have a use for. Can you tell me why any person, man or woman, should have a claim—remembering now that the pie is only so large—on another human beings share, many times on the order of a thousand to one?
Yes, capitalism can work as an economic system but to remain fair it should include President Lincoln’s dictum: that government should do for people what they cannot do for themselves—this in the form of common sense even handed regulations.
It would be very hard to convince me that a person would not strive to have a job that produced a very good living just because there was a regulated limit on the slice of the economic pie that he or she was entitled to.
It would be great if the business community could regulate itself but with the ever present flaw of greed in the mix, it seems impossible.
To my chagrin, It is probably not possible to wrest power from the wealthy to the point where government could impose meaningful regulations: this would require making lobbying illegal—not likely. But indeed, if we cannot somehow put a limit on greed’s claim, humankind’s legacy may well be as Shakespeare’s Macbeth described it: “… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Yet, I prefer the optimistic possibility that there are many more nongreedy people than greedy ones. I am quite sure that even most conservatives are not basically greedy: just misinformed—believing the false notion that the economic pie is unlimited.
My definition of greed, as I use it here, is not the natural desire and striving for basic needs and security; that is, after all, the tenacity of life itself. No, what I am referring to here is a selfish desire beyond reason for more and more for its own sake.
Still, I do hold out hope that life is not as empty as Shakespeare’s Macbeth describes it. It is at the same time tenuous and tenacious. To save our home, this little blue world we survive on, we need to use wisely and in a balanced way our gift of the sun’s energy.
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